COMBINATION OF COCONUT COIR AND BENTONITE AS A BIOSORBENT FOR REMOVAL OF LEAD (Pb) IN WASTEWATER

Abstract

Lead is one of the industrial wastes that can be harmful to the living environment. Adsorption is one of the effective processes for the removal of lead. For this process, an adsorbent media is needed, and the preferred kinds are commonly those based on bio-materials as not only they are abundant and low-cost but also reported to have high effectivity. However, activated carbon as a stand-alone material has a low adsorption efficiency hence modification or combination with another material is needed. This research offers to explore the potential of activated carbon from coconut coir combined with activated bentonite as a hybrid adsorbent to remove lead contaminants. In this work, adsorbents were prepared in various combinations such as pure bentonite (with and without activation), coconut coir (with and without activation), and various activated bentonite-pure coconut coir. The obtained results disclose that the combined bio sorbent has a good adsorption performance in removing lead with a maximum adsorption capacity of 182.71 mg/g at an equilibrium time of 90 minutes.